The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-05-07
Beecher's Advice to Parents.

The last syndicate letter of Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher contains some
valuable practical advice to parents.
We make the following extract from it.
The practice of allowing children to
60 out at night to find their own COM
panions and their own places of amuse-
ment may leave one in twenty unscath-
ed and without danger but | think that
nineteen out of twenty fall down wound
ed or destroyed.
There may be things that it is best
that you should do for your children,
though you would not do them for your
selves; but they ought not to go any
where at night, to see sights, or to take
pleasure, unless you can go with them,
until they are grown to mans estate and
their habits are formed. And nothing
is more certain than that to grant the
child liberty to go outside of the parental
roof and its restraints in the darkness of
night is bad. and onlv bad. and that
continually.
Do not suppose that a child is hurt
only when he is broken down. 1t does
not require that child should be broken
down to be made useless by his exposures
to temptation. | aver that there are
many things which no man can learn
without being damaged by them all his
life long. There are many thoughts
which ought never to find a passage
through mans brain. AS an eel, if he
were to wriggle across your carpet, would
leave slime which no brush could take
off, SO there are many things which no
person can know and ever recover from
the knowledge of.
If wanted to make the destruction
of child sure, | would give him un-
watched liberty after dark. You cannot
do thing that will be SO nearly guar
antee of child's damnation as to let
him have the liberty of the streets at
night.
do not believe in bringing up the
young to know life, as it is said. Ishould
just as soon think of bringing up child
by cutting some of the cords OF his body
and lacerating his nerves and soaring
and tattooing him and making an Indian
out of him outright as an element of
beauty as | should think of developing
his manhood by bringing him up to see
llfe-to see its abomlnable lusts, to see
its hideous incarnations of wit, to see its
internal wickedness, to see its extravagant
and degrading scenes, to see its misera-
BILE carnalities, to see its imaginationS
set on fire of hell, to see all those temp
tations and delusions which lead to per-
dition.
Nobody gets over the sight of these
things. They who see them always car
ry scars. They are burned. And though
they live, they live as men that had been
burned. The scar remains. And to let
the young 60 out where evil appears,
where the frequenter of dens of iniquity
can come within their reach, to let them
go where the young gather together to
cheer with bad wit, to let them 60 where
they will be exposed to such temptations
why. a parent is insane that will dc
it. 10 say GA child must be hardeneS.
he has to get through somehow, an0
you may as we'll put him in the vat and
let him tan"-is that family education ?
Is that Christian nature? Is that bring
| ing child up in the nurture and ad-
monition of the LordP
| thank God for two things-yes, for
thousand, but for two among many:
First, that | was born and bred in the
country, of parents who gave me sound
| constitution and a noble example. l
never can pay back what | got from my
parents. If | were to raise monument
of gold higher than heaven it would be
no expression of the debt of gratitude
which l owe to them, for that which
they increasingly gave, by the heritage
of their body and the heritage of their
souls, to me. And next to that | am
thankful that l was brought up in circum-
stances where l never became acquaint-
ed with wickedness. know great
deal about it; for if l hear man say A,
l know the whole alphabet OF that mans
life, by which can imagine all the rest.
If see a single limb, l have the physi-
ologist talent by which l know the
whole structure.
| But | never became acqualted with
wickedness when Twas young by coming
| in contact with it. never was sullied
in act, nor in thought, nor in feeling,
when l was young. grew up as pure
as woman. And l cannot express to
God the thanks which owe to my moth
er, and to my father, and to the great
household of sisters and brothers among
whom | lived. And the secondary
knowledge of these wicked things, which
| have gained in later life in profess
sional way, gained under such guards
as was not harmful to me.